A FINANCIAL TIMES BEST BOOK OF 2024The worldrenowned economist offers a groundbreaking new vision for inclusive prosperityLeft behind places can be found in prosperous countriesfrom South Yorkshire integral to the industrial revolution and now Englands poorest county to Barranquilla once Colombias portal to the Caribbean and now struggling. More alarmingly the poorest countries in the world are diverging further from the rest of humanity than they were at the start of this century. Why have these places fallen behind And what can we do about it Worldrenowned development economist Paul Collier has spent his life working in neglected communities. In this book he offers his candid diagnosis of why some regions and countries are failing and a new vision for how they can catch up. Collier lays the blame for widening inequality on stale economic orthodoxies that prioritize market forces to revive left behind regions and on the arrogant handsoff and onesize fits all approach of centralized bureaucracies like the UK Treasury. As a result Collier argues the UK has become the most unequal and unfair society in the western world. Yet the core message of Left Behind is hopeful bringing together encouraging case studies of recovery from around the world Collier shows how renewal is achievable through a combination of collective learning moral leadership and local agency. With keen insight he draws lessons from such seemingly disparate fields as behavioural psychology evolutionary biology and moral philosophy to share a bold galvanizing vision for a more inclusive prosperous world.